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Pascow speaks:

I am a character actor, best known for my portrayal of Victor Pascow in
the original Pet Sematary. I am also known for my Guest Star work on
Sci-Fi television: Stargate SG-1, Heroes, Moonlight, and others;
including four separate appearances on the Star Trek series: Deep Space
Nine, Voyager and Enterprise (twice). While these are the popular
titles, the span of my career has actually been quite varied: from drama
(Inherit the Wind, The Yearling) to thrillers (The Bedroom Window,
Sleeper Cell) to comedy (Eighteen Fingers of Death, Living Single); from
big-budget (Ali) to low-budget (The Chair). I have been seen in many
popular television shows (Charmed, ER, Medium, CSI-New York) and have
also worked plenty on the live stage, both as an actor (Night of the
Iguana, Fool for Love) and as a director (The Glass Menagerie). The
journey has been quite wonderful...

I entered this world on October 8th 1959 in Fort Meade, Maryland. Being
an Army brat, I lived in five different abodes in four divergent cities
in three separate time zones by the time I was six. It was then, in
1966, that my family landed in Falls Church, Virginia, just outside of
Washington D.C. Though we did not know it at the time, this is where we
would stay; this would be the place I would come to know as home.

Graham Greene once wrote: "There is always one moment in childhood when
the door opens and lets the future in." This moment came to me in the
form of a large man with a bushy moustache and a hearty laugh. A former
acquaintance of my parents', he was passing through town one evening and
dropped in for dinner. And as we ate, this man told wondrous tales of
going to the movies as a child, of seeing Frankenstein and Dracula, of
how terrifying these films were for him as a young boy. The man was a
storyteller, no doubt, and his rendition of these relatively commonplace
events was so dramatic, so entertaining, that I, as a young boy myself,
was enthralled. The door had swung open: hello, future.

From that moment on I became obsessed with horror movies. Frankenstein,
The Mummy, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Dracula, The Raven, The Wolf
Man, Phantom of the Opera... all of them, all presented on our
black-and-white television on Friday evenings at 11:30, courtesy of Sir
Graves Ghastly. This obsession lead to Saturday afternoon viewings of
all those 1950s Sci-Fi classics: Panic in the Year Zero, Tarantula,
Attack of the Mole People; along with the Japanese monster flicks:
Godzilla, Mothra, War of the Gargantuas, Reptilicus (but wasn't that one
Danish?). I saw everything, read everything, and even wrote my own
monster scripts for backyard staging and frightened off all the
neighbors.

In adolescence, this obsession with horror films took a U-turn to silent
comedy (laughter, I suppose, being as exhilarating as fear). Now I saw
everything I could, not only of the greats (Keaton, Chaplin, Lloyd &
Langdon) but also of the lesser-knowns (Mabel Normand, Fatty Arbuckle,
Lloyd Hamilton, Max Linder, Ben Turpin, etc.). The venues were
far-flung: from late-night airings on TV to the AFI theater at the
Kennedy Center to odd public library screenings for senior citizens... I
hit them all, and saw everything. And, of course, it wasn't too long
before I began making my own silent films... 8mm summer projects with
neighborhood kids. This passion, surprisingly, culminated in an
award-winning film, Run for your Love. This film, shot when I was
eighteen, was a 25-minute black-and-white silent comedy which I wrote,
directed, and edited (and acted in). Run for your Love won the first
place "Golden Eight" award and "Best Acting" award at the 1979 EVOL
Super-8 Film Festival in Washington D.C.

In that same year I was accepted into the BFA acting program at Virginia
Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. They had a very good
conservatory theater program, and it was there that I first learned to
act. The obsession then turned in another direction altogether: to
Lawrence Olivier and Marlon Brando and the great actors of our time.
Four years later I graduated and set off for New York City, arriving on
December 31st, 1983, a few hours before midnight. The entire city
poured out into the streets to welcome me.

Once in New York I quickly signed on to study with one of my idols, the
great actor Mr. Michael Moriarty. I remained in his class, under his
mentorship, for more than six years. During this time I managed to find
an agent and book acting work, both on stage (Fool for Love, Night of
the Iguana) and feature films (The Bedroom Window, The Chair) and the
occasional television gig (Monsters, Gideon Oliver). Then, in 1988, I
booked a horror film penned by Mr. Stephen King called Pet Sematary.

The life of an actor is never easy, whether one is a well-known star, an
industry-known actor or an unknown beginner. In the years prior to
booking Pet Sematary (and even for a few years after) I was forced to
provide for myself financially by taking on a wide variety of day jobs.
I waited tables, of course. Bussed tables, too. Washed dishes.
Vacuumed department stores. Answered telephones. I taught English to
foreigners, I unloaded trucks, I butchered snow crabs out in the
Aleutian Islands. I drilled holes in small pieces of wood nine hours a
day for no discernable purpose. I painted apartments, I stocked
warehouses, I delivered fitness drinks to Jersey gyms. I taught
aerobics, gave massages, danced to Stravinsky and sewed angel wings for
a production of The Nutcracker. I was a data-entry clerk, a secretary
for an accounting firm, a longshoreman and a personal assistant to a
celebrity. I compiled and edited lists of German verbs for a grammar
book. I passed the hat as a street mime. I was a stock room
supervisor, a movie theater ticket-taker, an Off-Broadway theatre usher,
a telemarketer and a movie extra. And I acted. Every so often, I
acted. And once in a while I actually got paid for it.

In 1993 I moved to Los Angeles, where work was more plentiful. In
leaving New York, I also left the world of day jobs behind. I now work
in film and television on a regular basis. I am a member of the Academy
of Television Arts and Sciences, and a member of the Pacific Resident
Theatre Company (where I get myself back on the live stage about once a
year). And I teach... not as a revenue-generating enterprise but rather
as payback to the wonderful mentors that brought me to this
place... teachers who also did not teach for the money, but for the love
of the craft and as payback to their mentors.

It's a good life, enriched by those of you who appreciate my work.
Thanks for visiting my website. Drop in anytime!